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MUSIC
DEPARTMENT

VE Day 1995

Prague

(first performance)
ofRutherlyn's

Orchestration

Derek Barnes

Subtitled

A LEGEND IN MUSIC

of

THE LIFE AND TIMES

of

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL

Born 30th November 1874 . . . . . Died 24th January 1965.

You have been so faithful and so
loving to us,
you have fought so stoutly for us,
you have been so hearty in counselling of us
that we shall never forget your favour towards us"

HOUSE OF COMMONS
November 30th 1954

The Presentation Edition of Orchestral
Score

of

THE CHURCHILL MUSIC
____________

Lady Churchill's Letter

THE CHURCHILL MUSIC

was a gift from the composer to
both

Lady Churchill

and

THE WINSTON CHURCHILL MEMORIAL TRUST.

25 years ago.

The only covenant upon it
was that no part of the music could be used for commercial or 'theme'
music.

At the composer's
suggestion she placed the orchestral score into the care of the
Trust, where it lay unknown for 19 years.

The composer also presented Churchill College Cambridge with an
identically bound edition in 1974.

In 1994 the composer took the gift and copyrights back and
presented Lady Churchill's leather and gilt bound orchestral score,
complete with the copyright in perpetuity, to

THE CHURCHILL SOCIETY
London.

It was the Cambridge College
edition which the composer took back after 19 years of neglect and
which he sent to the Prague Conservatoire of Music in 1993. The
quality of the work was immediatley recognised and led to the work's
first performance by the Czech National Orchestra in conjunction with
Radio Prague and Cszeke TV on VE Day 1995 in Prague.

The composer believes that
the Trust and the Society should merge. . . . and will do so . . . in
years to come.

A musical portrayal of Blenheim Palace, where Churchill was born,
and of an awakening child taken into the care of his nanny, Mrs
Everest, to whom Churchill remained devoted all her life. The music
ends with a lullaby and the child falling asleep. (A
6 minute movement.).

My God, to Thee do I implore;
Oh, take away my fear.
That in this night of terror and fright;
I beg, I pray, You keep near to me:
God, hear my prayer.
Forgive me Lord, for sins long past,
For deeds of hurt and thoughtlessness:
If Thou should'st spare me yet to live,
I will love Thee.

In this the hour of my despair,
Oh, come and give me strength.
That in the agony of this war,
I'll feel and know Thy presence,
Comforting me.
Steel my heart to bravely endure,
These days of sorrow and nights of fear;
Nor let me an act of cowardice do,
And I'll love Thee.

After the last fanfares have sounded from high in the dome of St.
Paul's Cathedral, Big Ben Strikes 11 am and the congregation stands
in silence in memory of all those who suffered and died, and remain
standing to the end of the work.

The first performance was televised by Czeske TV and broadcast by
Radio Prague on VE DAY 1995..

"What relevance does a Music
Department have to the Society?....................."

"............. 'music' is remorselessly played, down
telephones, in lifts, airports and departmental stores, in the
dentist's surgery, and often mindlessly drenched over every
item on TV. It is all pervasive, inescapable 24 hours a day,
365 days a year; so much so that we no longer listen we just
'hear' it subconsciously......................"

"....................are we - by
doing this - putting at risk the inborn musicality of our
children by subjecting them frombefore
birth (for it has been proved that a foetus can listen to the
outside world) and then; as they begin to grow - all day long
to today's mass music cacophony? Is it not strange how good
parents unthinkingly permit the publicists and merchants to
degrade their children's inborn, superb aural
selectivity?....................."